Participating in YouTube Tags

When I say participating in tags, I don’t mean the buzzwords block of random words you’re supposed to enter for your videos that help people find you when searching for content. I’m talking about the old fashioned game of tag. In YouTube terms it means tagging other YouTubers. Mostly for list videos. Things like-”10 Things You Didn’t Know About Me” or “50 Things in my Room” or “TMI Tag: The Too Much Information Tag.” You do a video on some list topic, and then at the end of it you tag five other YouTubers you’d like to see do it. The tag games are a lot of fun. Everyone loves assembling lists, especially self-referential lists, and tag games are all about introspection. Also, one of the things you hear every YouTuber talk about at least once is, “I don’t know what to make a video about.” That’s the bane of every vloggers existence. The constant need to come up with something to talk about for another video. Always. Tag games are fun, they’re easy, they have a series of rules built into them, they’re introspective, and they’re community oriented.

When I saw the 5 significant films tag, I thought it was the coolest. It forces you to think about your relationship with movies very differently and examine things that hit you on a level more than critically. It’s really cool and the movies that show up on people’s lists are unexpected and give you an unusual insight into them and their lives. No one tagged me, but I had to do one. Then I issued an invitation for everyone who watched mine to do one and link to it in the comments of my video. Most of the responses have just been people writing their films into the comments, but they don’t explore the reasons nearly as much, they’re just a few titles typed as a column. But, so far, I’ve gotten videos from 4 people. It’s SO AWESOME! I love it. I LOVE IT SO MUCH! The five significant films tag is the coolest. Here are the responses I’ve gotten so far:

The tags games also help people find your channel. Anyone searching for the tag might come across your video and decide to check out your list since they’re interested in the concept of the tag. It’s part game, part project, part fishing expedition.